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It's not real clear in the article at all, but it appears that they are simply re-allocating unused computing power (on non-video encoding reserved instances) t

It's not real clear in the article at all, but it appears that they are simply re-allocating unused computing power (on non-video encoding reserved instances) to video encoding tasks on demand. I think that the author is just calling it an "internal spot market" for sake of reusing terminology familiar with their audience (or to try to attract clicks).

fragmede 9y ago
Or, y'know, they implemented an internal spot market, where encoding jobs can say "I'm willing to pay $X to encode right now". Other jobs bid $Y, and the scheduler can prioritize appropriately. If true, that would be pretty interesting - priority is a common feature to implement on top of a naive scheduler, but 'nice' values are harder to connect to dollar amounts. Unfortunately, the article doesn't go into any detail if that is, indeed, what they implemented.
- mgummelt 9y ago
  If you'd like to learn about an open-source scheduler that does mimic some of the properties of an internal spot market, check out Cook: https://github.com/twosigma/Cook https://github.com/twosigma/Cook It's unlikely that Netflix implemented anything this complex for video encoding, since Cook is only valuable when you're scheduling jobs from parties with conflicting incentives, rather than a singular purpose like "encode all Netflix video".
  - bob_theslob646 9y ago
    Holy Shit, two sigma, the hedge fund, developed that.(Cook) >Cook is a powerful batch scheduler, specifically designed to provide a great user experience when there are more jobs to run than your cluster has capacity for.
  - fragmede 9y ago
    Looking closer at the mission to "encode all Netflix video", a less idealized version involves people at Netflix and outside it, who have signed contracts with deadlines and monetary incentives and everyone wants to go first, but how many are willing to put their money where their mouth is, so to speak. It's expensive to operate thousands of instances in AWS, so I presume there's also a relentless push internally to drive down costs. Thanks for the link to Cook, that's fascinating. The fact that it plugs into Mesos seems quite useful!
- nitrogen 9y ago
  I designed the audio transcoding infrastructure and scaling plan for an audio-heavy startup a number of years ago, but unfortunately the mobile app was delayed and they ran out of money before public launch. Using other servers as lower priority job servers is a great way to increase utilization during off-peak times and save on server costs. You have to think about what happens if either a batch job or the server's main task runs away with all the system resources, so it can get tricky. A spot market might actually be an interesting solution to some of those problems, though for most of us, just using disk quotas and nice levels will be enough.

fragmede 9y ago

Or, y'know, they implemented an internal spot market, where encoding jobs can say "I'm willing to pay $X to encode right now". Other jobs bid $Y, and the scheduler can prioritize appropriately. If true, that would be pretty interesting - priority is a common feature to implement on top of a naive scheduler, but 'nice' values are harder to connect to dollar amounts. Unfortunately, the article doesn't go into any detail if that is, indeed, what they implemented.

mgummelt 9y ago
If you'd like to learn about an open-source scheduler that does mimic some of the properties of an internal spot market, check out Cook: https://github.com/twosigma/Cook https://github.com/twosigma/Cook It's unlikely that Netflix implemented anything this complex for video encoding, since Cook is only valuable when you're scheduling jobs from parties with conflicting incentives, rather than a singular purpose like "encode all Netflix video".
- bob_theslob646 9y ago
  Holy Shit, two sigma, the hedge fund, developed that.(Cook) >Cook is a powerful batch scheduler, specifically designed to provide a great user experience when there are more jobs to run than your cluster has capacity for.
- fragmede 9y ago
  Looking closer at the mission to "encode all Netflix video", a less idealized version involves people at Netflix and outside it, who have signed contracts with deadlines and monetary incentives and everyone wants to go first, but how many are willing to put their money where their mouth is, so to speak. It's expensive to operate thousands of instances in AWS, so I presume there's also a relentless push internally to drive down costs. Thanks for the link to Cook, that's fascinating. The fact that it plugs into Mesos seems quite useful!
nitrogen 9y ago
I designed the audio transcoding infrastructure and scaling plan for an audio-heavy startup a number of years ago, but unfortunately the mobile app was delayed and they ran out of money before public launch. Using other servers as lower priority job servers is a great way to increase utilization during off-peak times and save on server costs. You have to think about what happens if either a batch job or the server's main task runs away with all the system resources, so it can get tricky. A spot market might actually be an interesting solution to some of those problems, though for most of us, just using disk quotas and nice levels will be enough.